Friends are the Best!

My pretty pal Micaela is hosting a giveaway of one of our wooden bracelets today on her wonderful blog, Dolce Vita! I am so thankful for the raving reviews Micaela and her husband have given us about the sunglasses/eyeglasses they purchased for our shop! And look how pretty she is wearing her hubs glasses.

I have a serious friend crush on this lovely lady and her support and friendship means so much to me. Visit her blog and enter to win a super awesome giveaway!!

Also, you can stop in to Freckled Nest and enter to win a special bow necklace giveaway on Leigh-Ann's blog. Obviously we love giving stuff away!

While I was at the bakery today, Doug was busy busy busy making sunglasses and other wonderful treasures. He took some photos too, and I wanted to share a few with you.

I'm off to the post office. First though, I wanted to thank everyone who we have gotten emails from recently. We are getting everything together and can't wait to ship it all out. A big thanks in advance for all your support!!! I am glowing with love right now.

Love always,

Beca

Sickies go for a Walk

We're both sick now, but I still have work to go to, and after a busy day, I wanted to do something relaxing. We took Charlie to Balboa park and took a little walk. We both go super tired and are back on the couch. Actually, Doug is totally passed out, and I'm working on our kickstarter project, which I will share with ya'll later this week. If I don't die from the flu first. Anyways, I took a few photos on our walk.

The trees are so tall and pretty. And those sunglasses are the newest ladies style in our shop.

It was a nice little break. I have to work early in the morning, and then I have about a million packages to send off. Sorry this is so short, but I'm going to bed now!

xo,

Beca

French Macarons - Mexican Hot Chocolate

I am happy to say that I have finally, after much unnecessary distress, mastered these really not-so-tricky little monsters. I also realized my folly. I have been using our flat pizza-like oven instead of the confection oven that the kitchen chef uses. I don't know why I didn't realize this sooner, but the pans were getting too much heat exposure with the flat oven and the cookies were - In the simplest terms - melting. Now that I am using my brain, every single batch of macarons I make now are perfect.

These came out especially great. I was really happy with the flavor and the texture. I LOVE Mexican hot chocolate. I used to make cupcakes in that flavor at Epic (my old stomping ground, and my first experience as a bakery manager) years ago and the cayenne and the cinnamon leave such a nice flavor in your mouth mixed with the sharp dark chocolate.

I used Stella's perfect macaron recipe and substitutes 2 oz of confectioners sugar with cocoa powder, and added about a TBSP of cinnamon and a pinch of cayenne. You can add more for more spicy. That's up to you! I also stuck some yummy little marshmallows with chocolate ganache in the middle.

Okay, not going to lie, I totally ate this one up! I love the way the ganache oozed out because it was still warm when I put it on the cookies.

Alright, I'm off to take photos of some really pretty wooden faced brass rings and a new sunglass style for the ladies! Check the shop soon!

xo,

Beca

26 Before 26

First of all, look at this pretty ring we have in our shop right now! I would keep it if it fit me. Somebody please snatch this up before I change my mind!!!

Secondly, my 26th birthday is in 77 days. That seems really far away but I think now just may be the perfect time to make a nice little list of 26 things I want to complete/focus on before my 26th birthday. That gives me about 2 1/2 months to do all of this and we'll see if I have when the time rolls around.

1 // Learn how to cook well and creatively. Cook more at home.

2 // Travel somewhere I have never been,

3 // Finish the crochet blanket I started last year.

4 // Start painting with oils.

5 // Lose enough weight to get to my goal weights of 160.

6 // Learn as much as I can about my job in the next two months to make me the best pastry chef I can be.

7 // Take better care of my skin/face.

8 // Get my drivers license back.

9 // Write more letters.

10 // Start a 5 year journal.

11 // Ride my bike to work everyday, or at least 5 days a week.

12 // Make ice cream

13 // Downsize my belongings

14 // Make a documentary

15 // Do everything I can to help make Doug's full time job making sunglasses!

16 // Make-over my blog!

17 // Take family portraits

18 // Read more books (thank you book club!!)

19 // Go to a berry/flower/fruit/vegetable festival

20 // Wear more dresses

21 // Wake up early and walk to get a coffee with my love before work at least once a week

22 // Make a batch of friendship bread. I haven't in a while and it's so therapeutic. (I will blog about it)

23 // Make more friends in San Diego. I am SUCH a homebody and so awkward. I think that's why I love blogging so much. The awkwardness is maybe less.. Maybe....

24 // Get my eyebrows done professionally. I have never done ANYTHING to them and I kind of want to!

25 // Go to the flower farm with my man and pick lots of pretty flowers.

26 // Make pomegranate juice from my pom tree

Some are big, some are small, some are just daily or weekly goals. I'm excited to work towards these and will be coming back to cross things off the list. Lets see how many I can do before August!

What goals do you have right now?

xo,

Beca

Some News + Book Club

We have some exciting news to share. So, as of today, the love of my life has made the transition from crappy day job to awesomely self employed. I am uber proud of him and have been biting my tongue since we made this decision last week until today to tell all my friends. Yes, we both know it will be hard, yes we both know that it may not work out, but we are going to give it a shot and I know he'll give it his all. This is a risk we are willing to, and very excited to, take! As a family, this will be exciting and freeing. Of course, I'm still running the bakery, and we'll keep doing side jobs, but let's make this work!!

What does this mean for you? It means that we will be listing new sunglasses everyday at a variety of prices in our etsy shop. We are going to make a bunch of different styles available to you (including some heart shaped wooden faced sunglasses!!) and going to be offering a variety of discounts for sharing the love through social media.

Also, for a limited amount of people, we are willing to share our goods with bloggers who want to write about our sunglasses or wooden bracelets. If you are an interested blogger, you can email me at tumbleweeds.shop{at}gmail{dot}com for more information! First come, first served, so get on that quick!! We will still be making bracelets also, and some new awesome wooden treasures! I don't know how this will work out, really, but I'm going to try my darndest to make it work, and would love help from all of my blogger friends.

Recently we have been featured in a number of treasuries, one that made it to the front page!

Yesterday morning, we were featured in an etsy roundup by my pal Chelsea of The Dainty Woods blog and the so sweet shop, The Dainty Woods.

This is a really exciting time for us and we can't wait to share more news as we move forward in this adventure.

On another note, the oh so lovely Carla and Sarah have let me join in with their really awesome plans for starting a book club via blogging. If you know me, you know I could read all day long. I could have no other ambitions except finishing the book that I am engrossed in. I have read so many books that sometimes I get a book that I think is new and realize half way through that I have already read it. Ridiculous, I know, but it is a fact.

So to bring together our serious love for reading, we are starting this awesome book club that you are invited to join! You can read more about the first book and the plans for the club (and some rad book-related Friday favorites) on Sarah's blog. Just a hint though, the first book on the agenda looks uhhhhh-mazing and I can't wait to read it and talk about it with friends.

Have a great weekend. I'm back to work tomorrow after a nice day off. My back is feeling better today too!

xo,

Beca

My Aching Back

So, I guess my head wasn't the only part of me that was injured in the Hammock accident of 2011. My back is out of whack. I haven't been in this much pain since I had my tonsils yanked. So, that's that. I am not leaving the couch until Saturday morning, when I have to go back to work.

(I love being the boss and saying boldly, I'm taking tomorrow off because I can't walk properly, thanks!)

Be back tomorrow. Maybe.

xo,

Broken Back Beca

Home Tour Part One - The Living Room

This is the first part of our home tour. I'm not going to write about every little thing, but I will tell you that we are NOT white space, light colored anything. I like my internet space full of white space and clean and tidy, but my home space is full of rich browns, deep warm colors and a little bit of clutter. I am not embarrassed by the clutter, I embrace it and try to make use of our very very small space.

Doug's workspace in the living room since there really isn't a lot of work space in our studio.

Our TV stand is from the sidewalk down the street. We found it walking home from the bar and Doug and Chris put it on their skateboards and pushed it home. It was quite the adventure. I love the chevron design on the front.

This jungle yarn embroidery is HUGE! And I am deeply in love with it. Every time I look at it I am still in awe that someone made this with their hands!

I like old Mexican blankets and the couch is covered with one to keep it somewhat clean. Although this couch isn't really my style, we got it for free from a friend when we first moved here and it is pretty comfy.

So that's our little tiny living room. It's cozy and warm and comfortable. We spend a lot of our time eating dinner, checking emails, watching movies and working on projects in this little space.

Next week, Kitchen, studio and photo room.

xo,

Beca

What I Wore Kinda...and Weight Loss Check In

Yes, I am wearing levis and bare feet under this cute little mini-sweater-dress-thingy. I figured it wasn't interesting enough to show them. This top is too short to be a dress, too long to be a shirt, so uh...tunic? Ha. Anyways, I am going to post twice today, because I am in the process of doing a home-tour-thingy. That's the word of today.

I also like drinking big giant fruit smoothies from a jar. That's my thing.

If you can tell, our studio behind me is full of stacks and stacks of veneer. Good thing too, these sunglasses are blowing up! Hooray! We need this to work, desperately, so let's make it happen!

And also, if you can't tell, I have lost 12 pounds this month. TWELVE! And gained muscle tone, and went from a size 12 to a size 9-10! WTF! Yes! We officially went one whole month with no soda! I had a 7-up at the bar the other night, because the world was going to end anyways. I wanted a Shirley Temple, but the bartender yelled at me for asking for cherries, so plain 7-up was what I got. Jeez. Maybe he was scared of being raptured and that put him in a bad mood.

And Also, I found this pretty house frame the other day at the swap meet. I can now add it to my collection of houses. Yes, that's right, I collect houses. That's a whole 'nother post. Can you see a house behind me holding some of my rocks?? ;) I collect rocks too. Ha!

Oh, and also, I can't wear my glasses right now, because yesterday, I went into the backyard to sit on my hammock and talk to my grandma on the phone. The gardener moved the hammock, but I figured (stupidly) that he put it back together properly. Uh, no. He didn't and when I sat down, the bar that hold up one side of the hammock smacked me in the forehead, just above my hairline, and knocked me to the ground. I have a nasty bump on my head (still) and a bad bad headache, but for some reason, it hurts to wear my glasses right now. Hopefully it will be better by tomorrow.

Top-Tunic-thingy // Target, of course!

Jeans // Levis

What are you wearing today?

I'll be back soon!

xo,

Beca

DONT FORGET, YOU CAN GET 10% OFF ANY PURCHASE IN OUR SHOP BY USING THE ETSY COUPON CODE "FIXTHEVAN"!! Good for the rest of this week/weekend!!

French Macarons // Mini-Burgers

Yesterday, Etsy tweeted a link to these adorable mini-mac French Macarons. And yes, they are shaped like cheeseburgers! Of course, I had to make them. Unfortunately, my day was incredibly stressful and when I get stressed out, I CAN'T seem to make anything the way I want to. It's kind of like I project my stress into what I make and it can be really frustrating. So, i only got 10 good cookies out of this batch, and they weren't even that good. A lot of them cracked. But, I documented the journey, cracked cookies and all.

I use Stella's recipe for macarons and 95% of the time, they are pretty good. I'm not in the realm of perfect yet, but pretty good is good enough for me. She also has an incredible Macaron Myth post on her blog that takes the scary out of macaron making. After a month of using her recipe, this is what it looks like. (I have it memorized by now, but still keep it just in case.)

I would like to introduce you to my buddy, R2D2, jr...my robot coupe. I dubbed the food processor at my old place R2D2, and this one is the same size, but has to be junior, since it's the second. It's a little beat up, but I love it. I make my own walnut flour for macarons, and this is the where I make it!!

I'm not going to go step by step here, just wanted to show my process.

Walnut flour. Mmm.

And I am not shy to share my mistakes. My first batch was horrible. I was n the phone for half the process and then the health department showed up and almost gave me a heart attack. (Not that I had ANYTHING to worry about, but they always make me so nervous...) Here are some awesome macarons that came out stupid and got eaten by the cooks and thrown in the trash. Boo.

While I waited for the good batch to bake, I got my little hamburger patties ready. I used chocolate cake and then sliced it thinly in half.

I made some fondant cheese slices. I wanted to eat them up!

A few of my cookies were still cracked, but whatever. I don't even care anymore. Raspberry sauce for ketchup!

Green buttercream for lettuce!

And, ta-da. mini-burger cookies.

Pretty cute if I do say so myself.

I'm off to the post office. Goodbye friends.

xo,

Beca

Playing Catch Up

Pica, Picachu! Hello, I am here!!!

I'm not going to lie, I am ridiculously behind on EVERYTHING, not excluding laundry, shipping stuff for the shop (sorry customers who read this, I put little extras in your package to make up for it!) eating normal meals, cleaning the bathroom, picking up the backyard, emails, and a whole bunch of other stuff. It's not like I am moving in super speed, but I am running around like crazy all day, apparently making Pokemon cakes, and then come home and can't seem to move fast enough. I just want to lay around. But, riding my bike to work, being on my feet all day long (I never take real breaks besides tweet, pee and snack breaks...why would I want to be at work longer than I already am!)

So really, when I come home, I get on the internet and play with photos and watch TV and help Doug with his sunglasses. Sometimes I make dinner, but mostly, we've been eating cheez-its, ramen and Hawaiian Punch for dinner. I told you, I'm not going to lie. But, we have been busy little tumbleweeds making a crazy amount of sunglasses.

Look at this craftsmanship. So clean and made by hand!!

It's been two weeks to the day since we started listing these in the shop, and we are already on no. 11. which is insane to me. I am so glad they are picking up. We love making them and it is a great and affordable way to have customized glasses. And I don't really mind the makeshift studio in our livingroom, as our real studio is piled high with wood!!

I obviously love mine!!! I am still rocking the number ones. The first ones ever made. See, look, that's me at my favorite place wearing my favorite shades.

(No. 11 refers to how many we have sold, not how many we have made. There was about a month of prototyping and experimenting with wood and glue and enamel, and have a basket of the ones that didn't make the cut. Dougie has high standards for his art and these not excluded.)

I don't know if you have noticed, but my real glasses, the ones with my prescription in them are D&G faux-wood frames and I have had them for-ev-errrrrr. (insert The Sandlot-esque voice, please!) Uh...the wood is faux, not the stupid designer label that cost waaay too much but make me really really happy. Anyways, I won't take any credit for Doug's creations, but I do consider myself something like a muse. Something like it.... ;)

On another note, some douchebag hit (and run) our van last night, so this morning, after I had to leave really early for work on the old bike, Doug went out to leave for work and couldn't get the van started. We didn't realize until after he had to call out from work, and discovered the van actually would start on Neutral, that the lovely person taco-ed our front rim and knocked the van so hard that it won't go into park (hence not being able to start it this morning.) Also, the whole front end vibrates when we drive it now. It sucks because the rims are brand new, and really expensive. I know it stupid to be upset because the rim is messed up, but we work hard for everything we have, and we don't have much. The van is important to us. A few months ago, we needed new tires and our friend got rims that didn't fit his impala, so we bought the rims and tires off him. It took three paychecks to pay them off and now, we probably have to get new ones. Our vacation funds are dwindling bill by bill. Bummmers.

BUT, I should be thankful that they didn't damage the actual van and only the rim because that would have made us really sad. Our van just may end up being our home one of these days (at least while we travel) and keeping it in good condition is a high priority for my man.

So, if you want to help us fix our van and replenish our vacation funds, you can use the COUPON CODE "FIXTHEVAN" in our shop for a 10% discount on any and all items, including sunglasses! Oh hell yaah! Only for a week or so, and then it will be June and you can head over to some pages we're sponsoring for coupon codes. ;) More on that later!!

Okay, I am actually going to go make dinner. A little late, but I'm hungry!! Then back to work packaging up treasures and watching cartoons with my number one!

I love you all and feel like I am back in the zone when it comes to blogging and junk.

xo,

Beca